Pica Disk Musica Non Grata is the second release in Jazkamer‘s 2010 monthly series, and the CD has three long tracks. To make it clear and save you wasting time reading further: this is a study in feedback! Those who are still reading might like to know that this full length CD from the trio again being Lasse Marhaug, John Hegre and Jean-Philippe Gross, is very much different from […]
Monthly archives: February 2010
(Endgame) Shane Fahey is an ex-member of the seminal Australian post-punk combo The Makers of the Dead Travel Fast, whose much sought-after late 70s and early 80s output has recently resurfaced on a couple of anthologies focussing on the releases of the M Squared label. If anyone was wondering what the group’s synth player has been up to since then, this release at least partly answers the question. […]
(Hydrahead) For most of the twenty-eight years since Lustmord’s debut, the lot of a devotee has involved much twiddling of thumbs between infrequent releases and little chance of catching the man live – the portentous date of 06/06/06 seeing his first (and to date only) live appearance since the early eighties. Happily, in contrast to most creative trajectories, the old contrarian seems to have grown more prolific during […]
Imprint If John Peel were still with us today, he would undoubtedly love Monkey Island. Straddling the aesthetics of his own Dandelion label and his beloved Ron Johnson Records, this Hackney-based group may be the hitherto undiscovered (and indeed unsearched for) missing link between Stackwaddy and Stump. Opening instrumental “Back to the Stoneage” could be an out-take from Beefheart’s Mirror Man had The Magic Band been imbued with […]
Further Murmurations sees guitar noise dronemeister Urthona teaming up with London-based electronic boffin The Asterism to create some wonderful alchemy on two long pieces inspired by the natural world in the West Country. Although a CD release, Murmurations is conceived as a classic vinyl LP, with side one’s 24 minute “River Severn Bore” incarnating the relentless natural power of the said tidal current, layers of distorted guitar and […]
(Applebush/Easy Action) The collections of ‘rare’ T. Rex material to have appeared in the years since Marc Bolan’s death in 1977 by now dwarf the official output released during his lifetime. Although much of them are deeply inessential, and sometimes indeed unlistenable, carefully sifting through these volumes of out-takes and demos unearths some gems that actually surpass the official releases. The alternative versions of Electric Warrior and The […]
(Hometapes) Hailing from Copenhagen, Slaraffenland have made an album that seems quite out of time without sounding in the least bit dated. Their sound is at once infectious and fidgety – a restless pop music that harks back to the days when groups had too many ideas to stop and spend any time polishing any of them into blandness, moving on to the next song before the last […]
Viktor Wynd Fine Art, London 22 & 29 January 2010 Strange Attractor Journal, now in its third edition of writings promoting unpopular culture, has long been intertwined with the visual, musical and performing arts. For January 2010, the Strange Attractor machine has moved into exhibitionist mode, taking over the Last Tuesday Society‘s art space above their very curious basement shoppe of horrors on Mare Street in Hackney located […]
(Midwich) A folk group from Essex recording a concept album about the Lofoten Islands in Arctic Norway seems an intriguing though ultimately self-defeating idea. After all, isn’t the idea of folk music that it reflects the culture it comes from, rather than holiday snaps of exotic locations? Actually, it turns out that the two areas share a large amount of common folklore, dating back to Viking times, and […]